Photo: Xinhua/STR Six people were killed and 450 injured after clashes between protesters and supporters of President Mohamed Mursi on Wednesday night, reports Ahram Online from Cairo.
Fighting erupted between the two groups in front of the presidential palace after anti-Mursi demonstrators set up tents during an attempted sit-in protesting the country's draft constitution and a controversial presidential decree, according to Aswat Masriya.
People injured or killed by the fighting were admitted to hospitals in the Heliopolis area, Ahram Online adds.
A journalist, El-Hosseini Abul-Deif of El-Fagr newspaper, was reported to be one of those who died. In response, the executive board of the Journalists' Syndicate held President Mursi responsible for his failure to ensure public security.
Reuters reports that tanks and soldiers of the Republican Guard have been deployed outside the presidential palace to maintain calm.
Ahram Online also says that six members of the presidential advisory staff have resigned in protest over Mursi's decrees and his inability to resolve the crisis.
Mursi's chief of staff, Refaa Tahtawi, was quoted as announcing on Thursday that Mursi would address the nation some time during the day. He declined to indicate what the president would say, but added: "There will be no return to the past, yet there will be moves to the future".
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In every Revolution, the groups that have fought and brought down a dictator fight among themselves afterward for the spoils of victory. Egypt is no exception. Of course, after the Egyptian elections for both a parliament and a president, the elected officials are the legally binding on all Egyptians governing party. But in Egypt - as it is also expected to be in Syria after the fall of Bashar Assad- things are more complicated. Simply stated, the Western powers who kept Hosni Mubarak in power for 32 years were aghast to see Mubarak go, and had tried to replace him with anybody -except anyone from the Muslim Brotherhood. But when the Muslim Brotherhood won both the parliamentary majority and the presidency, the West continued its support to Mubarak's party, and also started supporting any party and organization which opposed the Muslim Brotherhood. That external interference has divided Egypt into "two camps:" The old Mubarak regime and other parties supported and funded by the West, and the Muslim Brotherhood and other religious parties supported by nationalist Egyptians on the other side. Fortunately, the Egyptian sides are fighting with fist and stones. But I expect to see a bloodbath in Syria where the rebels armed and funded by the West through Saudi Arabia and Qatar will fight it out with Islamic groups and other nationalist Syrian rebels who are trying to prevent a foreign controlled stooge regime from taking over their country. And there should be no doubt that once Assad is gone, the latter will get the support of both Hezbollah and Iran! Nikos Retsos, retired professor